Andrew Johnson’s Cabinet, which was composed of the same men who had served Lincoln, agreed that the president’s body should be returned home, to Springfield, Illinois, by way of the same train route he had taken to Washington, D.C., in 1861. Three other stops were added, making it a very long and eventful journey.

The stops in Philadelphia and New York City were the longest. Thousands of people came to see the body, and every person who did probably told three others of the experience. Quite a few Americans who were young at the time remembered the event for the rest of their lives (the artist Grandma Moses was one). Lincoln’s body was buried in Springfield on May 1, 1865.